Hoai-Tran Bui, special to wtop.com
WASHINGTON – The skies this past weekend may have been gloomy and grey, but the streets in downtown D.C. were teeming with color.
In celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, which takes place all through the month of May, the Asia Heritage Foundation hosted its eighth Fiesta Asia Street Festival on May 18.
The outdoor festival was not hindered by the damp weather on Saturday, which featured a spectacle of colorful food, music and performances.
The festival featured five areas for attendees, including one for a martial arts demonstration, one for traditional East Asian performances, one for modern Asian American performances, one for Middle Eastern performances and an interactive dance stage.
Children were also provided an area to play with arts and crafts activities — such as origami and henna — and adults were treated to a beer garden catered by Heineken.
The street festival was created in response to the lack of exclusively Asian festivals in D.C., according to Asia Heritage Foundation’s executive director Wui Peng Yap. In the past eight years, the festival has grown to encompass more than Pacific Asian cultures. It now includes countries such as Nepal, Tibet and India.
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